The current system of dental education faces many pressures that threaten its capacity to sustain institutional vitality for the research, teaching and clinical care missions of the research extensive university. The Macy Study at Columbia University's Center for Community Health Partnerships is a three-year project designed to address these pressures by proposing viable new models for dental education. As part of the development of these models, a series of three special expert panels will convene in either Washington, DC or Bethesda, MD, to define research and technology ready for clinical use, but not well represented in the curriculum. These three areas are: genetics, to include clinical genetics; new diagnostics; and infectious diseases. The three panels will convene in one-day meetings to achieve the following: 1) develop learning objectives to be incorporated into the curriculum based on scientific and technologic advances that will change practice; 2)identify educational strategies to achieve stated objectives; and 3) provide consideration to the pace of new findings for adoption and application into practice. For each of the three areas, a 10 to 15 page report will be prepared and distributed to dental schools under the collaborative aegis of the Columbia University Center of Community Health Partnerships, the National Institute for Dental and Craniofacial Research, and the American Dental Education Association. The curriculum materials produced by the expert panels will provide contemporary teaching materials for dental educators on topics that will improve the quality of patient care. [unreadable] [unreadable] [unreadable]